COURTS: APPEALS COURT THROWS OUT FELONY CONVICTION IN GOOD HOPE CASE

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- A state appeals court has reduced the felony conviction of one of the men charged in connection to the June 1999 altercation between police and nightclub patrons in the Good Hope area of Cape Girardeau to a misdemeanor.

Dimtri Bell had been found guilty by a New Madrid County jury of interfering with the arrest of Kenneth Campbell near the Taste Lounge during the early morning hours of June 11, 1999. The incident erupted into a near-riot, with some in the crowd police estimated at about 150 people hurling debris at officers, several of whom suffered minor injuries. Numerous arrests resulted.

Upon being convicted of the class D felony, Bell, 20, of Cape Girardeau was sentenced to seven years in prison.

In a decision handed down Monday, a three-judge panel of the Missouri Court of Appeals Southern District in Springfield, Mo., unanimously reversed Bell's felony conviction, but held that there was sufficient evidence to support a misdemeanor conviction.

The case was remanded back to New Madrid County Circuit Judge Fred W. Copeland for resentencing as a misdemeanor. The matter had been transferred from Cape Girardeau County on a change of venue.

Bell will stay in jail

Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle said the appeals court decision will have little practical effect. Bell is currently serving consecutive prison sentences totaling 25 years on four drug convictions unrelated to the Good Hope incident. The felony conviction and accompanying sentence the appeals court threw out was to have run consecutively to Bell's other prison time.

Swingle said he would seek the maximum sentence of one year in county jail for Bell when a sentencing hearing on the reduced charge is held. A date for that hearing is yet to be set.

"We plan to ask for one year under the theory that if the judge felt what he did was worth seven years, it will be worth one year," Swingle said.

In his appeal, Bell argued there was insufficient evidence to support a felony charge of interfering with arrest because it was unclear that then-Officer Rollin Roberts was attempting to arrest Campbell for a felony charge.

In various trials stemming from the incident, Roberts, who resigned from the Cape Gir-ardeau Police Department in August, testified that he initially attempted to arrest Campbell for violation of a municipal noise ordinance when Campbell became violent and attacked.

Hours after the incident, Campbell was arrested on felony charges. In May, a Boone County jury acquitted Campbell of assault of a law enforcement officer and resisting arrest.

Bell had initially faced three charges: Assaulting a law enforcement officer, interfering with an arrest and rioting. The rioting charge was dismissed before trial and the jury acquitted him on the assault count.

In the appeals panel's decision, Judge James K. Prewitt wrote: "To find the defendant guilty, the jury was instructed that they had to find that when Defendant interfered, the officers were making an arrest of Kenneth Campbell for Assault of a Law Enforcement (sic) in the First Degree.' There was, however, no direct evidence presented that indicated for what charge Kenneth Campbell was arrested."